There is a secret language in nature, and from those who are able to read it nothing in the Fallen World may be hidden, for all things are interconnected and everything is reflected in everything else. Nature displays its treasures for all to see, but unfolds in ways that few can ever fully comprehend, changeless only in its ever-changing evolutions, devolutions, and revolutions. The diligent mage may divine the intricate syntax and grandiose grammar of this secret language, glimpsing even deeper secrets in the Mists that enshroud mysteries beyond mortal comprehension.

Most would halt or turn back, but some press on into this nature beyond nature, this "supernature," if you will. In the Mists can be found the implicit order from which the visible world grows, the sleeping giants whose bodies are the land, whose breath is the wind, of whose voices the thunder is but an echo. Here is where the faces of nymphs shine through flower and fruit and leaf, where the dances of sylphs trace breeze and gale, where gnomes churn away at the molten heart of the mountain. This is where magic is born, and even the mightiest mage must tread carefully or not at all.

It was the Walkers in Mists who first taught mankind to mark the trails it followed and to recognize landmarks that could lead unerringly from region to region. Rather than following seasonal growth or available game, mankind could choose its own path to its destiny. To the more settled folk he gave games of chance -- the vagaries of which teach, in miniature, the mysteries of fate and destiny -- that they too might experience the adventure of the unknown. But with the spread of civilization, mankind forgot the wisdom of the Walkers, taking their gifts for granted and detaching itself from the rhythms and cycles of the natural world.

Even their games of chance -- once used to divine the very will of the gods themselves -- degenerated into a competitive orgy of materialistic greed, attracting crime and corruption. As broad, well-traveled roads carved up the wilderness and creased the face of the earth, the Walkers found it increasingly necessary to rely upon ley lines to guide them invisibly through the Mists from grove to lake to mountain as they visited the few remaining sacred sites. In modern times, they are completely marginalized, loners patrolling the fringes of the overdeveloped world.